This article talks about how scientists have detected the most distant explosion ever near the edge of the observable universe. The stellar blast was first spotted by a NASA satellite in April 2009, but researchers announced Wednesday that they have since gathered data placing it more than 13 billion light years away. This means that the explosion happened when the universe was still very young. Andrew Levan, one of the scientists behind the discovery, said this blast from the past blew open a window onto the universe's early years, showing that massive stars were already dying within the first few hundred million years of the birth of the universe. Scientists have said that the intensity of the explosion creates, in a few seconds, the same amount of energy expended by the sun in it's whole 10 billion year life span.
I think that it is quite amazing that scientists have discovered an explosion that is approximately 13 billion light years away. I mean 13 billion light years is a hard number to wrap your head around. It means that the light produced from the explosion took 13 billion years to reach the earth and it's traveling insanely fast. According to Wikipedia, which is always right, light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per second. This means that light could travel around the world about 7.5 times in one second. Also, in the article it talks about how the energy from the explosion in just a few seconds equaled all of the energy that has every been created by th sun and all of the energy that it will ever create in it's 10 billion year life span. All I have to say is, that there was one hell of an explosion 13 billion years ago!
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